


Strange Tortures

by liralenli



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe, BDSM, Bloodplay, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-07 23:19:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liralenli/pseuds/liralenli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kira was very very badly used by Ichimaru Gin. Kira hides his abuse in the way that victims often do, but when Gin leaves, Kira has to deal with himself. Through Hanatarou, he gets introduced to a sadistic Ukitake who is NOT a Dominant. I used nearly a decade's practical experience in the Scene to write these stories, and it turned into a sort of impromptu series. Ukitake, here, is mostly teaching Kira what is possible, and has a long-term relationship with Kyouraku. Kira is just a secondary relationship for Ukitake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. After Care

**Author's Note:**

> So, for the very first chapter, called _After Care_ , this was written for LJ's Springkink with the prompts of "NOT Gin/Kira" - hurt/comfort - "It doesn't have to be this way." And this part had to be written before the next chapters would even let themselves be written.
> 
> I originally posted these in very disjoint parts. There were three different possibilities on how this was going to end up, and I was originally writing this while I was also writing Ukitake while Stark Black wrote Shuuhei learning to do BDSM in very different circumstances. I'm taking the chance to post this in more reasonable chunks here, and I have some interest in seeing how Kira actually figures out how to heal himself.
> 
> Apologies for the writing as I started in 2008, which is quite some time ago, but the characters are speaking to me again, and it seems a good thing to keep going with and give poor Kira some resolution at last.

A Saturday night in the Fourth Division, and Jirou, the night clerk for the infirmary, didn't blink an eye when Kira-fukutaichou staggered in at 2 a.m.. He had a broken nose, a black eye, and a bruise on his jaw that looked like he'd been lucky not to have it broken too.   
  
He was bleeding, too, and left a trail of blood and bloody footprints when he refused a wheelchair. The intern led him to one of the examination rooms. As usual, he asked Jirou to attribute his injuries to a brawl in Rukongai's Seventy-Second District. As usual, he asked for Yamada Hanatarou, and a Hell Butterfly was sent. As usual, the clerk warned him about going to those rough parts of town; and, as usual, Kira-fukutaichou politely thanked the clerk for his advice before limping off to the examination room.  
  
After he left, Jirou had the intern mop up all the blood, and swore under his breath about stupid drunks.

* * *

Hanatarou sprinted, skidded, and hit the doors of the Fourth Division Infirmary harder than he intended. But he ignored the pain, yanked them open, and went in.  
  
"Room 128," Jirou said, without even looking up from his book.   
  
Hanatarou took a more decorous pace through the hallway: he didn't want to collide with people coming out of the rooms. He worried a little when he realized that the whole path he was traveling had been freshly mopped.  
  
He got to 128, took a breath, and walked in. He blinked when there was no one on the examination table. He looked around, and that was when he realized he was hearing soft, shuddering whimpers of pain. And they were all coming from the tall, blond man who had propped himself in a corner of the room, feet spread for stability. His head was on the corner post, hands spread against the supports for the paper counterpanes. Blood smeared onto pure white paper. It was good that the panes were easy to replace.  
  
"Kira-fukutaichou... why aren't you on the table?" Hanatarou asked. There was no response. He went up to Kira and winced at the pool of blood that had formed under the shinigami's straw sandals. He touched the blond on the shoulder, very gently.  
  
Kira moaned and his knees buckled. Hanatarou used his medic's training to catch the bigger man, who twisted and gave a cry of pain at the pressure against his back. "Kira-fukutaichou, it's me, Hanatarou. You're safe," Hanatarou said.  
  
The unswollen china blue eye looked into his own, focused on him. Then it closed and Kira fainted.

* * *

Hanatarou rarely slept Saturday nights, anymore. Even when he was off-duty, he would just sit up with a book or studying healing kidou until the dawn. He wasn't always sure he'd get called, but he was always glad he could respond instantly when he was.   
  
Hanatarou got Kira's limp body onto the examination table, and he carefully took off the layers of the man's uniform. He'd done this enough times before that he wasn't surprised at finding deep, looping bruises and bloody abrasions along Kira's ankles and wrists, or at the blood soaked all the way through to the black shinigami kimono along Kira's back and legs. The cloth was sopping, which explained the trail of blood where he'd walked from the door to the corner.  
  
It was no wonder Kira hasn't wanted to sit or lie on the examination table. This time, however, there were also slashes all along his front, chest, and belly. When he got all the kimonos off in a bloody pile on the floor, he paled at the depth of the cuts on Kira's front and the ground meat texture of the skin of his back.  
  
Oh, kami of sky and air.   
  
Hanatarou pulled a close-weave sheet over Kira, and then a soft blanket, so he wouldn't get cold. Then he left Kira on the table, locked the door with a bit of kidou, and raced for his room. He threw things in all directions, looking for Hisagomaru. Finally, he found the blade and yanked it out from under his bed.  
  
 _Hmph... you lost me again. You're not going to make me fight, are you?_  His sword sounded sleepy, grumpy.   
  
 _Not really... I need your powers to heal someone._  
  
There was a feeling like a grumble.  _Battle_ _wounds?_  
  
Hanatarou bit his lower lip.  _Well... kinda... and something deeper, too._  
  
 _Oh, okay. Let's go, then._  
  
Hanatarou raced back and walked the way back to the room, and unlocked the door. He was surprised to see an open blue eye looking at him when he walked in. Kira had shifted to lying on his side, with his face towards the door. Kira closed his eyes after he saw whom it was that walked in, but opened again at the sound of steel coming out of a sheath.  
  
Kira said softly, sounding resigned, "You, too?"  
  
Hanatarou blushed, "What?"  
  
"You want to take a piece of my ass with your steel, too?" The words were bitten out, bitter. "Since you've seen how... he's... used me. But you've been so nice to me... I thought... well, as long as you continue to not tell anyone... feel free."  
  
"No... no, it's not like that," Hanatarou protested. He wasn't quite sure what Kira was saying, but he didn't like the tone. "I can show you."  
  
Hanatarou braced himself, "Hisagomaru, fulfill!"  
  
 _Hanatarou, those are not battle wounds._  The blade sounded suspicious.  
  
 _I still have to try, and they're... I think they're a mark for something deeper._  Hanatarou hoped that would be enough.  
  
 _Mmm..._  said Hisagomaru.  _You may be right._  
  
His zanpakutou only transformed enough to show a gauge on the side of it. Hanatarou squinted at Kira's chest, and then swung.  
  
Kira's breath hissed as the sword made a cut across but mostly parallel to one of the slashes already open on his chest. His hands clenched. But then both cuts suddenly disappeared, and Kira gave a questioning sound. He touched the newly healed skin, smooth under the gore that had been bleeding from it. The gauge on Hisagomaru showed just a peek of red.  
  
"Your wounds aren't serious, or deadly, Kira-fukutaichou, but there are so many of them..." Hanatarou tried to sound very apologetic. "This is the fastest way for me to get to all of them."  
  
"You're... you're healing me..." Kira sounded utterly stunned.  
  
"Of course," Hanatarou said, and swung again and again. Neatly he closed up all the front slashes. "There... you should be more comfortable lying on your front now, sir."  
  
Kira groaned as he finally let himself fall onto his front. Hanatarou eyed the scores of single-tail whip marks across Kira's back. He picked a diagonal line, and slashed through most of them. Kira's back arched with the cut, an inarticulate cry was dragged from his throat that Hanatarou blinked at. It wasn't just pain in that sound.   
  
Hanatarou knew the sounds he closed himself off to every day. Sometimes he had to hurt people in order to heal them; and while he didn't like it, he knew that it wouldn't do them any good for him to hesitate or stop. He just had to let them deal with their pain themselves, and get on with his job. There was something different, almost needy, in the sounds Kira was making.   
  
Kira's back healed in an instant, just two raw patches on the two corners Hanatarou' slash hadn't touched. Those were easy enough to skim a light cut over as Kira whimpered softly. Hanatarou checked the gauge, and it only showed a few inches of red along the full length of it. There was plenty of room left.   
  
A quick stroke down each of Kira's legs, splitting the skin for just an instant, to an almost desperate cry from the fukutaichou; and then the backs of his legs were smooth again, losing the purple and red lines of a crop, though still covered with trickles of blood. The deep bruising along Kira's rear end, though, made Hanatarou frown.  
  
"I'm sorry, but I have to put Hisagomaru's point into the muscles of your buttocks, otherwise I can't get to the deep bruises. So I guess I'm warning you that this is going to hurt."  
  
"Thank you, Hanatarou-san," Kira said softly, into the pillow. "I am warned."  
  
Hanatarou braced himself before he drove the point of Hisagomaru deep into one blue and purple-striped cheek.  
  
Kira gave a choked-off scream, and then a moan of relief as the whole muscle healed, cleared of the ugly darkness of pooling, bruising blood. Kira's hands fisted on the pillow under his head, and on the second stab, his knuckles whitened and he gave a pained gasp, but he didn't scream.  
  
Hanatarou ran his hands over the whole skin, ignoring the sticky lines of drying blood. The muscles under his hands firmed, bunched. Good, they were working just fine.   
  
"Is that good?" Hanatarou asked.  
  
Kira's answer was muffled by the pillow. "Yes. Very good."  
  
"Can I work on your face and neck now?" Hanatarou asked.  
  
"Uhm... may I have the sheet and blanket, please?" Kira asked, a blush rising on his uninjured cheek.  
  
"Certainly. I wouldn't want you to get cold," Hanatarou said, as he bent to pick the sheet and blanket up from the ground, and spread them over Kira's naked form.  
  
"No, you wouldn't, would you?" Kira said softly, sounding puzzled, as he turned over to lie face up under the blanket. "Are... are you going to use your zanpakutou on my... on my face?"  
  
Hanatarou shook his head. "I was just going to use traditional healing techniques for them. They're too close to your eye and the main arteries in your throat. Your ankles and wrists are too full of delicate bones, tendons, and blood vessels. I'd rather just do the usual hands-on techniques of laying reiatsu on those wounds. Also, given that Hisagomaru gains energy by healing, I now have plenty of power to use."  
  
"Ah. All right." Kira sighed softly.  
  
Hanatarou laid gentle fingers over Kira's throat, cradling the blond's jaw. He could feel Kira's pulse pick up at his light touch. Hanatarou summoned his reiatsu with a healing kidou for bruises, and unleashed his power through Kira's battered jaw and face. The swelling softened and drew down. The dark colors of bruises faded. Kira's broken nose shifted and moved back into place. A soft groan was drawn out of Kira, and then he muttered with a clearer voice, "It tingles..."   
  
Hanatarou nodded. "It usually does, doesn't it?"  
  
Kira looked at him warily.  
  
Hanatarou avoided the look and asked, "Can you sit up, now?"   
  
Kira tentatively swung his legs over the side of the examination table, clutching the sheet around his middle. He frowned, and then nodded to the small healer.  
  
Hanatarou deftly took one of the blond's long, strong hands in his. He concentrated as his slender fingers stroked the abraded bruise over the wrist, and the colors faded, disappeared. When he looked up he saw Kira staring at Hanatarou as if he might disappear as well. Gently, Hanatarou lifted his hand from that wrist and lightly captured Kira's other hand, which he healed.  
  
Then the slender Fourth Division healer knelt to put both hands on one of Kira's badly abused ankles. He heard Kira's breath catch again as he lightly slid his hands in a caress along the abraded, darkened skin and applied his reiatsu. He stroked down the swelling and realigned the small bones that had been displaced in whatever it was Kira had been doing. Hanatarou couldn't help himself: he tisked softly at realizing exactly what kinds of forces had to have been applied to do this kind of damage.  
  
He felt Kira stiffen at the small sound, and just shook his head. He caught the other ankle, other foot, and stroked that gently as he healed the hurts upon it. He then ran his hands up Kira's legs, healing the bruises on them, as he got up from the floor.  
  
When he was standing again, Hanatarou looked right into Kira's blue eyes. Kira looked down, eyelids half closing, avoiding the gaze, until Hanatarou put his fingers under Kira's chin to bring his face up a little. Then, startled, Kira looked right at Hanatarou.  
  
"Kira-fukutaichou, I mean no disrespect, sir, but this has been the fifth time in the last two months that you've come to the infirmary in this kind of condition."  
  
"So?" Kira said. His gaze went anywhere but to Hanatarou's eyes. "Can't a fukutaichou have a little fun?"  
  
"This does not look fun, sir. This looks..."  
  
Kira pushed Hanatarou away, violently. The little healer tumbled with a yelp.  
  
Kira jumped up and reached for the pile of dark cloth that had been his clothes, and then made a small sound of dismay at finding them soaked, saturated with his drying blood. Hanatarou had cut them off his unconscious body, so they were in no shape to wear.   
  
"Listen to me, please," Hanatarou pleaded as he scrambled back onto his feet.  
  
"Why? What do you know?" Kira bit out, looking wild, sheets falling everywhere around him.  
  
"I know those were whip marks, not... cuts. That the bruises and blood on your wrists and ankles were from someone binding you carelessly with chain. That whoever did this to you should have taken care of you themselves after... whatever they did. Not... not send you _alone_  to the Fourth, especially not all those times," Hanatarou said, heatedly.   
  
"What?" Kira said, looking confused then angry. "How... how does a kid like you know about these things?"  
  
Hanatarou blushed, "No, I don't  _do_  those things at all. But... Ukitake-taichou, he'll ask me to come to his... healing pool... to check on his... his... uhm... lovers... after, to make sure he did things right. He learns like a shark swims and he's great about teaching me what to look out for... and he said it'd be okay for me to use his name if I ran across someone that... needed that."  
  
Kira growled, "So another taichou uses his subordinates this way?"  
  
"Oh, no... none of them  _report_  to him. He wouldn't ever... oh..." Hanatarou's eyes got really big. "Oh, that's... bad."  
  
Kira's hand swung up and Hanatarou's eyes tracked it.   
  
 _Defend yourself!_  Hisagomaru hissed.  _Cut this hurt out of him..._  
  
Hanatarou listened to his soul, and looked up at those icy blue eyes. "It doesn't have to be this way, Kira-fukutaichou. There is a better way."  
  
The hand fell to Kira's side. The ice cracked, melted into tears tracking through dried blood, and Kira collapsed in on himself.   
  
Hanatarou cautiously approached Kira, and very gently put his arms around the naked, physically healed man. Kira leaned into the small healer and cried his heart out.

_TBC_


	2. Negotiations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kira follows up on Hanatarou's advise and he doesn't find what he expects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally wrote this because I rarely, if ever, see anyone negotiating a thing in fandom's BDSM fics, given that I came from the Seattle, C-Space school of BDSM, it's impossible to have BDSM without explicit and detailed negotiations between the participants. It's the unsaid things that can really get one into trouble. So, I wrote this as a prelude to the scene Kira and Ukitake have after.
> 
> Original Notes for this Fic: This actually came from a recurring dream I was having in Biloxi. It was one short shot that haunted me for the whole week and made it possible for me to sleep deeply on a steel bunk bed in a completely different environment. I slept like a rock for the whole week, probably as much from the work as from the dream... but I had to write it. 
> 
> But then the modern Ukitake in my brain wouldn't lay a finger on Kira until he'd really talked and negotiated what he needed to negotiate.

**Negotiations**

  


Kira Izuru found himself shaking as he entered the compound for the Thirteenth Division. He knew he was here for a reason, but it seemed like such a stupid reason the more he turned it over in his mind. What did little Hanatarou know about these things? How could he trust a taichou? He had trusted Gin with everything he was, and from that trust Kira had betrayed himself, his friends, and the whole of the Gotei 13. 

And with troubles like that, why was he so worried about something as trivial or stupid as sex?

Kira stopped outside the doorway into the compound.

Suddenly, there were two bursts of reiatsu and two figures dropped to one knee on either side of him. Kira felt the rock hard reiatsu of Sentarou and the new growth flexible reiatsu of Kiyone splash down next to him.

"Kira-fukutaichou!" 

"Kira-fukutaichou!"

"I welcome you to the Thirteenth, how may I serve you?" Sentaruo said gruffly.

"No! Let me help you? What do you need? A coordinated training exercise? Some help with paperwork?" Kiyone asked, near pleading.

Kira eyed the two Third Seats. Some part of him cynically commented that these two were a master's wet dream. Do anything you wanted, huh? 

In the back of his head Wabisuki stirred. _But look at them. They are not humbled the way you were. See their pride, their arrogance?_

Kira blinked as the two Thirds started squabbling over which of them would help him out the best. They certainly weren't like him. They had no trace of being cowed, of being... forced to guess correctly exactly what the object of their entreaties needed. They were both throwing out ideas like a fountain, showing off everything they could think of, testing those ideas against each other. And they had no fear of what it was he wanted or of getting it wrong. 

Kira frowned a little over what that implied of their captain. When they both cried out at the frown and came up with more ridiculous ideas, he interrupted them. "I need to see Ukitake-taichou, if it's okay. I didn't know his schedule..."

"You should have made an appointment!" Kiyone cried. "Then you would have known..."

"Stupid! It's obvious he happened to come by on some other errand and just wanted to drop in and see him!" Sentarou yelled. 

Kira was taken aback a bit by that. "But... is he..."

"Ukitake-san's just doing paperwork. He likes getting interrupted then," Kiyone said, comfortingly. "It's okay. I'll show you the way."

"No! I'll show him the way!"

The two of them elbowed each other on the way to Ukitake-taichou's office, and both of them knocked to announce him. From outside the office, Kira felt the sea calm depth of Ukitake-taichou's reiatsu. Breathless with suppressed anxiety, Kira stumbled into the office, into the depths of a power so alike and so different from Ichimaru's, only to see Ukitake-taichou with his brush in hand, poised over paper, and one eyebrow cocked in surprise.

"Ah. Good... uhm... is it morning or afternoon, Kotsubaki?" Ukitake asked, blinking owlishly.

Kira jolted at Ukitake addressing his subordinate by family name and without a honorific, respectful familiarity. 

"Morning, sir!" Sentarou answered easily.

"Ah. Good morning, Kira-fukutaichou, how may I be of assistance?"

Kira looked at the mild-mannered, open face before him and just couldn't, for the life of him, think of the man in front of him as a sadist. It was just... wrong. Hanatarou had to be mistaken. Or maybe Kira had remembered it wrongly. He'd been half-faint with blood-loss and pain, he must have fucked it up. His hope was just an illusion, a mad dream, impossible.

Kira shook his head, and his voice betrayed him and broke when he said, "I... I'm... I'm sorry... I think I must have been mistaken." He turned to go.

"About what?" Ukitake-taichou asked.

"Nu... Nothing. I'm sorry to have bothered you, sir." Kira felt faint as he turned away.

"Kira. Stay." 

Kira's eyes closed. He stopped, a shiver worked from his head to his toes at that deep voice suddenly sharpened to command.

"Thirds. Go." Two puffs of flash step and the Third Seats were gone. 

There was a swirl in that ocean of power, and then a small sigh, "They are truly gone. And you. You're not walking out that door with that wild mix of fear, arousal, and disappointment without at least saying something as to why."

"Something," Kira said and waited. The center of all that power walked up to him. He cringed, expecting to get hit for his presumption.

He opened his eyes when he heard a small puff of laughter. "I guess I asked for that."

Mild-mannered eyes looked at him. "You... you're not a sadist are you?" Kira blurted out.

Ukitake blinked. 

"You didn't hit me for... for giving you lip," Kira explained.

Ukitake surprised the hell out of Kira by laughing. "No. I like humor. As to the other question... I am a sadist. I have just a little masochism. I switch between top and bottom. I can be a dominant, but it's harder for me outside of the chain of command. I cannot submit, and I'm definitely not a master or slave."

"Those are all different?" Kira asked, bemused.

"You don't know that?" Ukitake's brown eyes looked concerned. "Then we do need to talk. What kind of food do you like? And is it even close to lunch time?"

"You lost track of the time?"

Ukitake looked sheepish, "I was writing. I don't really notice the time when I'm writing."

"What were you writing?"

"A story about a flower that talked with a bug and how the bug goes off to see things to tell the flower. It's a kids' book. One of my great-great-grand-something-nephews worked out the plot with me and he's doing the pictures."

Kira put his head in his hands. "A sadist that writes kids' books."

Ukitake laughed. "I told you I liked humor."

"It is lunch time. I like... anything..." Kira said, distracted.

"No preferences at all? Even between Western food and Japanese food?"

"None. You pick."

Ukitake shook his head, "This does not bode well." 

But before Kira could ask what he meant by that, Ukitake-taicho took off his captain's haori and hung it up by the door. "I think I'm off official duties now. Let's go."

* * *

They ended up at a little teriyaki place nearly on the opposite side of Seireitei. It was crowded, with plenty of tables and lots of people working their way through what smelled like really excellent food. The decorations were colorful and well done, the chef staff yelled their greeting with gusto, and within thirty seconds of a customer leaving their table, the table was sparkling clean and ready for them.

Kira noted that, somehow, Ukitake had wrapped his reiatsu around himself, minimizing his impact on the souls around them. He'd never seen Ichimaru do that, or most of the other Captains, they'd always seemed to enjoy making weaker souls tremble or fall over when they were near. Kira frowned and tried to draw his own reiatsu in and got a glance from Ukitake and a small nod. 

Kira sat opposite Ukitake and looked around with wonder. "We're going to talk about... that, here?"

Ukitake studied his menu, "After we order."

"But there's... people here. They'll hear us." Kira said, worried.

"Hm. How often do you hear the whole of a conversation when people are talking at a normal tone, when that lady is telling her girlfriends about how badly her beautician messed up her hair last week?" Ukitake tilted his head in the direction of the very loud, very animated woman gesturing with beautifully painted nails.

"Oh," Kira digested that while staring blankly at his menu.

The waitress came up, "Hey, what can I getcha?"

"Uhm.. I'd like a short rib lunch and one of the beef and chicken combinations, please, and some tea," Ukitake said.

"Both meals?" The waitress looked him up and down. "You do not look like you could even fit that in your skinny bod, honey. But it's your dime." She wrote in her pad while Kira choked over his ice water. "What about you, pretty boy?" Kira saw Ukitake bite his lip.

Kira flushed, "Uhm... just the chicken teriyaki, please, and uhm... hot water?"

"Plain jane boy, hm? Okay, not even a bit of spice for your meal?" The waitress grinned and winked at Kira making him blush even harder. "Oh, that's nice," she said. "All right... I'll let you be." She sauntered off.

"What a..." Kira said.

"... nice woman." Ukitake finished. "She was just teasing. I'll have to tell Shunsui about this place. And you are quite pretty."

Kira gaped at Ukitake, who frowned and studied Kira closely. 

"How is it that you don't know what a sadist is, and still knew enough to ask me if I am one?" Ukitake asked in a tone that, for Kira, was far too even for the content of the sentence. "And don't tell me it was just a passing fancy and you wandered in off the street on a whim and blurted that out by mistake. You're here."

Kira bit his tongue, and felt his face heat even more than when the waitress spoke to him. "How can you read my mind?"

"I can't. That is why we're talking in a public place. I can read your reiatsu for general emotional content and level of agitation. For most folks it gets stronger the more emotionally upset or focused they are. You are not focused." Ukitake said patiently. "Now. Why. Are. You. Here."

Kira felt pinned by that calm brown gaze. "Yamamoto Hanatarou gave me your name."

Ukitake blinked. "Who?" 

"The... uhm... the Seventh Seat of the Fourth Division? He's a little guy, straight black hair..."

"Oh! Right. He's good, but I can't ever remember his name. And he's helped me out... I'm glad he remembered to..." Ukitake frowned. 

Kira squirmed in his seat. "Can you please finish a sentence, sir?"

Ukitake grinned. "Sorry. I'm too used to talking with Shunsui. So. Would you like to know the differences in behaviors between sadists, dominants, tops, and masters?"

"Uhm... yes?" Kira wasn't sure if he cared, really, but it was obvious Ukitake wanted to explain things.

Ukitake bared his teeth in something that Kira could not call a smile. "Or do you really not care what you're getting into if you agree to do something with me?"

Kira felt his own anger flare. "Does it really matter? Isn't it all just I agree to go with you and you do what you want with me? Why do we have to talk about it? And why here?"

"Because the food is good?" The waitress said as she stepped in with their food and Kira nearly jumped out of his seat.

"Exactly," Ukitake said smoothly. "The food is excellent." 

The waitress deposited all their food neatly and exactly and gave Ukitake a smile and Kira a raised eyebrow, and then went on her way.

"So... why here?" Kira persisted. "It seems stupid, why not just lock ourselves in a bedroom and talk about what we want to do there?"

Ukitake snapped apart his chopsticks and happily breathed the steam off his food. "Well, the food here is good." Kira snorted and Ukitake looked up at him. "Besides that, in a public space I cannot physically coerce you. I cannot intimidate you in this setting. And both of us must behave within socially delimited parameters. For instance, you can't strip naked and try to seduce me into doing something I'd regret, and vice versa. There can be no threats that do not have other consequences in this situation. In a private setting... " Ukitake shrugged. "Given how you came to me, I'm sure you know what can happen in a private setting."

Kira paled. How Ukitake had gotten that from just the fact that Hanatarou had sent him made Kira dizzy to think though. 

"What... what if I don't want to do this? What if I just leave?" Kira said, shakily. 

"Then I'll pay for our lunches and I might have some leftovers for dinner. Though... I am rather hungry," Ukitake said peacefully after swallowing his mouthful.

"And... and you'll tell everyone I came to you for pain," Kira said bitterly.

Ukitake paused. "Wherever did you get that idea? I'm fairly sure the only name you were given was my own, no?"

Reluctantly, Kira nodded his head. 

"I have the Fourth Division give my name and my name only. There are people who need to know that they're not alone," Ukitake said with a sigh. "That does not mean that anyone else's confidentiality is ever broken by me." 

Kira thought and started on his food while Ukitake ate his first meal almost without breathing.

Ukitake sighed in satisfaction from the first meal and mournfully looked at his second. "Ah well, first the bulk of what I'd like you to know. The differences, short and succinct. Sadists like to give pain. I, in particular, only like giving pain to someone that really wants it, needs it, likes it, i.e. usually a clear masochist. Tops like to do things to a bottom that the bottom wants. A dominant likes to have control over their submissive, usually involving orders and punishment if the submissive doesn't do as ordered. With some pairings the punishment is actually the fun part of it. With masters and slaves, there is also a level of behavior correcting punishment, where what is done is something the slave would by all means otherwise avoid. You should note, however, that these are my distinctions, and if you do get involved with someone else, you need to ask what their labels mean." Ukitake ticked through all the points on his four fingers. "Any questions?"

Kira thought through one slow mouthful of chicken and rice. "Does that mean that a Sadist isn't always on top?" 

"Sadists usually are the ones doing, so... it's rather hard to bottom and be sadistic at the same time, but I've seen it done. I've seen a dominant order her submissive to flog her, and it was amazing." Ukitake said, reflecting.

They ate for a while in silence as Kira processed the information he'd been given.

"So, Kira-kun, what do you now make of the answer I gave you? Would you please explain what your understanding of me now is?"

Kira wracked his brain. "Uhm... the first thing was what you just said... that you like to give pain, but only to people that get off on it. Uhm... you'll give or take other things? You can give orders, but don't... uhm... take them well, and you're just right out of the whole behavior correcting business.... Is... is that it?"

"And... sometimes I can get off on a little pain, applied the right ways," Ukitake said. "Well done. I'm impressed you remembered so much of it when you didn't even know what the terms meant."

Kira smiled tentatively.

"Now, how would you describe yourself?"

Kira blinked and quirked a very crooked grin, "I've been Gin's slave."

Ukitake rocked back, eyes hooding for just a moment. "Bravely said, Kira-kun. Now... what do you want?"

"You just said you aren't a master... so... I guess I don't want..."

"No." Jyuushiro's deep voice stopped Kira's voice. "Do not shape your desires from mine. You must define your own desires."

Kira realized his hands were shaking. He whispered, "I want Gin back."

The brown eyes watched him, listening. When the white-haired captain said nothing at all, Kira shivered all the harder and thought frantically.

"I... I don't... I don't get what all this has to do with... with me. What does what I want have to do with anything? Why... why can't you just..."

"Because in order for me to really enjoy whatever it is that we do, I need to understand that you will enjoy it. Derive joy from it. And I cannot read your mind, Kira-kun. It is much easier if you can tell me." Ukitake brooded a moment, and then reached for his short ribs, giving Kira time to think.

Joy? Joy from any of this? Kira was frightened, more than anything. But the dark desires of his previous captain had imprinted themselves upon his nerves and body. Even pain from the innocent and hapless Hanatarou had aroused Kira embarrassingly. Kira hadn't even been able to masturbate without resorting to self-inflicted damage, and he was so tired of that. Suddenly realizing that, Kira finally found he could talk about it.

"I'm not sure if those things can describe what I want. I... I'm having trouble..." Kira cursed his complexion as he felt himself heat with a blush. But the obvious patience in the man opposite him was a quiet encouragement he hadn't expected. "I seem to need pain or threat in order to orgasm."

"What level of pain or threat?" Ukitake asked.

"Cuts, long slashes, or... or choking..." Kira frowned rather than cry. "I... I wish I didn't need those. But... I guess that makes me a masochist, huh?"

Ukitake nodded solemnly. "A heavy play masochist at that. Hm... asphyxiation, hard to time, but easier on higher level shinigami. We're damned hard to kill."

Kira blinked. "You've done that?"

Ukitake shrugged. "There is very little I haven't done in two thousand years. Go on, please." 

"Uhm... okay. I guess I'm a bottom, I like things done to me. I haven't... done things to other people... I don’t like hurting anyone. But I don't know what it would be like to have someone that liked it. I don't ever want to go through a master and slave relationship again, but... it's familiar to me, I think. I miss... some parts of it."

"What parts?" Ukitake gently prodded.

Kira huffed softly, "There were times... when I was just chained and relieved of... well... everything. I didn't have anything I could do, anything to decide, so I just... well... _was_. I don't know if that makes any sense."

Ukitake nodded. "That makes sense to me."

Kira sagged a little in relief. "You have no idea what it means to me to know I'm not... not crazy or something. Alone in all this."

Ukitake quirked a grin. "Good then. I have one more question. Is there anything you wish to never do or have done to you?"

Kira played with his chopsticks as he thought about that question. "I... I don't like... I don't like broken bones, broken noses, or dislocations. Marks on my face are so hard to explain."

Ukitake winced and Kira blushed quietly.

"I... I don't like it when someone really hurts me for getting things wrong. I don't... don't like... being ashamed all the time." Kira felt like the last was dragged out of him by Ukitake's look of sympathy.

Ukitake nodded, "I can't do humiliation or shame. So... that will be easy enough. I don't do any human wastes or cross-dressing. I don't usually do anything having to do with blood. I have a system for cleaning it up, but it's a lot of effort."

Kira blinked, "People play with human wastes for fun?"

Ukitake shrugged, "Yes, but not me." 

"Oh, good." Then Kira absorbed the other. "You... you don't spill blood?" 

Ukitake shook his head slowly. "Not without precautions and a lot of prep work and a real understanding of what the benefit to my partner is."

"Then I don't know if this is going to work," Kira said quietly, hearing only that Ukitake wouldn't cut him. "I've gone through this whole torturous conversation for no reason at all."

"Hm. Conversation as torture." Ukitake chuckled quietly. "Give me one chance, Kira-kun. I think I can make this conversation worth your while. From what you've said, your real wish is to figure out if you can be aroused by something other than cuts or blood and being choked. I think I can address that wish."

Kira's eyes widened. After all the things they'd talked about... this man had latched onto an offhand comment made from despair. And it was the one thing he hadn't thought possible.

"Can you come to my quarters tonight, Kira-kun?" Ukitake asked.

"At the Thirteenth Division?" Kira asked, recalling the paper walls of the officers quarters in the Third.

"Yes. Tonight at 7," Ukitake said, watching Kira carefully.

Kira nodded, "It can't hurt to try, can it?"

Ukitake laughed, "Ignoring the double entendre, no. It can't hurt for us to try."


	3. Kira's Scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kira has found the courage to ask for what he wants, now Ukitake attempts to give it to him.

Kira arrived promptly at 7. 

When they'd left the restaurant, Ukitake had asked his permission to touch him on his throat. Kira had consented. The white-haired captain then shocked Kira by wrapping his slender hands firmly about Kira's throat. There hadn't been enough pressure to cut off his breath, but he'd felt his pulse pounding against those slender, calloused hands. The captain had studied his hands, muttered, nodded to himself, and then bowed himself off to his offices. 

Kira had been half-aroused the rest of the afternoon simply from remembering that firm, warm, sudden touch.

He wasn't greeted by the Thirds on his way into the compound and he was grateful. He nodded to the guard, who gently challenged him for the requisite passwords and he gave them as formally. He was impressed that even in the midst of the Gotei 13 compounds, that regular sentry duties were kept so tightly. He made a mental note to check how good the discipline was of his own sentries.

He knocked lightly on the frame of the sliding door to Ukitake's private quarters, and the deep voice of the captain said, "Come in."

Kira took off his shoes, laid them beside one pair of clogs and one pair of sandals out in the hall, slid aside the door, and stepped in.

He blinked at the riot of pictures that greeted his eyes. An entire wall of the otherwise spare entry way was wallpapered with pictures. Pictures of kids, of men, of women, and groups of people all plastered over every square inch of the opposing wall. As he drew closer, Kira realized that the faces of nearly a tenth of the people in the pictures bore a remarkable resemblance to the Captain of the Thirteenth. 

"My family," Ukitake said quietly. "I love the new digital cameras, I can take as many pictures as I want and only print the good ones."

"Which are your parents?" Kira asked, curious.

"Oh... they were reborn to the living world a good thousand years before cameras. These are mostly fifth through twentieth generation relatives and their adopted children." Ukitake laughed, "Sometimes it's hard to keep track."

"Are any of your brothers or sisters still..."

"In Soul Society? I don't think so. I think they all moved on, along with most of their children, grandchildren... and so on."

"That must be lonely, to live so long you've lost everyone you grew up with," Kira said, reliving the pang of losing his own parents.

Ukitake laughed, "Not everyone. I still have Shunsui, Unohana-san, and Yamamoto-sama and a few others that have known me since I was in Academy. It's good to have friends that stick with you."

Kira thought about Shuuhei and Momo and Renji and nodded. "It is good to have friends that stick with you."

"All right. Let's head to the playroom," Ukitake said with a laugh. "I think you may enjoy it."

* * *

"Oh gods, how did you get this here?" Kira said, awe clear in his voice as he looked around.

"I didn't. Kisuke-kun did it as a favor to me... uhm... two? No... three centuries ago. He'd made his cave already and I just asked him to make a smaller chamber with three rooms for me." Ukitake stood with his hands on his hips, looking pleased as he looked around.

They had gotten there through a tunnel carved through what looked like solid rock. No sounds were going to escape from this place. The first room they came to was a bedroom. It was simple, stark, with a king-sized bed on a frame with solid, heavy posts and headboard. There were chests of drawers, and other storage furniture all around the walls and Kira found himself curious as to what lay in them.

On the far side of the room were two doors. The first led to a huge bath room, a toilet was set in a closet with a door; but the rest of the room was taken with a sink, a traditional Japanese washing area with a hand wand shower, and then a huge, heated soaking tub, covered with an insulated cover. Steam curled out from under the edges.

"Oh, my, that looks..."

"... decadent, no? I can have the tub filled with healing water from the Infirmary when we need it, but usually, it's just good, hot soaking water." Ukitake sighed. "And the steam helps my lungs, so it serves a double purpose."

The door to the last room was closed and locked. Kira raised an eyebrow when he tried it and found that it would not open. Ukitake shrugged, "That's for some other time, Kira-kun. We need to try what we've agreed upon tonight, first."

"All right," Kira said softly. "What would you like me to do?"

"First, a demonstration." Ukitake went and pulled open a drawer and pulled out a white bundle of soft rope. 

"That isn't going to hold me," Kira said quietly.

"It's not supposed to. I would like you to take a length of it and use just your normal strength against it." Ukitake said quietly. "No reiatsu or kidou."

Kira blinked and then complied. He pulled hard at the thick, soft rope and it stretched a little and gave pleasantly; but didn't part. 

"Now, with your powers," Ukitake asked.

Kira snapped the rope easily. "Like I said. Gin used steel on me."

"What if I want a bond that you can get out of if you really wanted to?" 

"Then... I guess this would be perfect. I can pull against it for the sensation of being held, but if I panicked, it would almost fall off of me," Kira said, thoughtfully. 

"Then that it is what we shall do. Now, I have a present for you. May I put it on you?" 

Kira blinked, a present? "Sure."

Ukitake pulled a short length of sapphire blue silk cord from his sleeve. There were fasteners on either end that glinted in the light. Ukitake took an end in each hand and then reached up to lay the slick silk against Kira's throat. The cord itself was hard, solid, but sheathed in that silkiness against his skin. Kira tried to swallow the lump that suddenly formed in his throat and at the sudden rush of desire in his loins, as Ukitake fastened the little choker against his throat. It was tight enough Kira could feel it pressing against his skin, but not so tight as to actually restrict his breathing. Again, he could feel his pulse beating against the silken sensation as it had against Ukitake's hands.

"Beautiful," Ukitake said in satisfaction. "It brings the blue out in your eyes even more."

Kira blushed, "Can I... can I take it off when I'm... in public?"

"Oh! Indeed, any time you like. In fact, I'd prefer you only wore it here, when you come to play, if you want to come back." Ukitake said. "But it's yours to keep any way you like, even if you don't come back. I'm just glad it fits so well. Now, if you please, I'd like you to strip." Ukitake turned to the various chests of drawers and started opening a few of them to peer into them and he started pulling things out.

"All the way? Or just down to the loincloth?"

"All the way, please."

"Are you always so polite?" Kira asked.

Ukitake laughed and Kira was relieved as the captain started stripping off his uniform as well with easy, practiced motions and very little self-consciousness. "Yes. Shunsui would say that it's because I have a stick up my ass, but, really, I just find life more pleasant if I am polite. For many, it makes up for my not being particularly obedient."

Kira had to laugh at that and felt so odd doing so. Sex with Gin had never been a laughing matter. It had always been weird battle for attention and against cold rages, never quite knowing when tenderness would turn into torture and vice versa. 

Kira looked up from his thoughts to see the white-haired captain standing, naked right in front of him, studying him. The captain carried himself with good balance. His musculature was solid, but as lean as a greyhound. Kira wondered if he could count all the ribs above that nearly concave belly. Kira blushed and glanced up at Ukitake's black eyebrows under that white hair. His pubic hair was as black as his eyebrows, and Kira wondered what had happened to make that distinctive flag of white hair. Ukitake's hips were sharp over legs as hard and lean as the rest of him. All of it covered in that lightly tanned, smooth skin. 

"You stand like your grandfather on your father's side," Ukitake said, head tilting a little.

Kira blinked, "You knew my grandfather?"

Ukitake nodded, "And your parents, your grandparents that served, and your three great-grandparents who were in the Fifth, Third, and Eleventh."

"Eleventh!?"

"Before this Kenpachi's time, so a different personality to that Division, then, but, yes, the Eleventh. Your family goes back a long ways in the Gotei 13."

The captain moved in closer to Kira, and then, gradually, Kira felt Ukitake's reiatsu rise. Kira's breathing fluttered.

"Are you all right with this?" Ukitake asked.

"Yes. What are you doing?" Kira's eyes closed as reiatsu rose all around him, tasting of ocean and thunder, waves gradually growing higher. His body shuddered and he felt his cock responding to being lost amid it. Gin's reiatsu had been hot and dry, desert heat rippling around him, almost smothering him. This was cool and crisp, but the feeling of being able to drown amidst it was the same.

"I keep my reiatsu furled during the day, to not inconvenience people. I like to relax that restriction when I want to really concentrate on something else. If the pressure is too much..."

"No... I... you're turning me on," Kira whispered as his knees wobbled.

"Indeed," the deep voice got closer. 

Kira leaned towards the sound, and groaned softly as Ukitake stepped in and pressed his lean, hard body all along Kira's. Skin against warm skin and Kira nearly cried out at how good it felt. Arms wrapped around him, and calloused hands stroked all the way down his back from neck to ass. Kira moaned, back arching into the pressure.

"Such beautiful sounds," the whisper breathed softly against his ear. "How did someone so responsive lose the ability to orgasm? Or were you only trying all alone, so no one could see or know?"

Kira flushed bright red, swallowed. "How do you know these things?"

"You told me."

Kira's eyes snapped open in outrage. "I did not... I..." His rage pushed back the weight of the reiatsu around him as he focused on Ukitake's face.

Ukitake's eyes looked... worried? He frowned but watching Kira carefully. "You are still in love with Ichimaru, right?"

Kira swallowed at the sudden turn in conversation. He tentatively shook his head no, but at remembering what he'd said in the restaurant, and at the intensity of the gaze on him, he felt tears well up. "Yes," he whispered. 

"And you're still ashamed of that, no?"

"Shouldn't I be? He's... he's a traitor to all the Gotei 13. He made me do something that nearly killed my best friend. I... I wasn't there when they butchered the Central 46 Chambers, but I saw the results and he said to say nothing. I am ashamed of that."

"But that's just what he's done. Not what you loved."

Kira closed his eyes at that and couldn't believe that Ukitake hadn't recoiled from him in horror at what he'd just said. But the warm embrace still surrounded him.

"So it would make sense that you haven't sought out others, to me at least," Ukitake said quietly, one hand just on Kira's hip, the other released Kira's shoulder to slide gently against Kira's jaw. Kira opened his eyes again. "This is a little odd for me, Kira-kun. I can tell that you're attracted to my power and what I have to offer; but I don't usually play with someone that doesn't want me for myself as well."

"Do you want me for myself?" Kira asked softly.

Ukitake leaned his forehead gently against Kira's, and Kira was reminded of when his mother used to take his temperature when she thought he had a cold. It comforted him in a way he hadn't expected. "That's odd, too, as while I know your records, your family, and I have interacted with you, I don't know you well enough to be able to say. At the moment, I'm out of balance on that account as well, as I am as attracted to your need as you are attracted to my power. You are beautiful. You feel wonderful. I'm starting to learn a bit about how you respond and what you like. Maybe that's just where we have to start for you to know what it is that you need to know."

Kira sighed softly, "Maybe."

"Then... hold out your hands, Kira-kun. Let's begin something new for you and me," Ukitake said cheerfully.

Kira held his hands out, and Ukitake deftly looped the soft cotton rope around both wrists, not particularly tightly, but making three wraps around both limbs. Kira frowned, and then nodded when Ukitake then turned the rope so that he could wrap it around the slack between his wrists. He wrapped until both rope 'cuffs' were against Kira's skin, but not tight. Then he tied it off. The remaining end he used to lead Kira over to the huge bed. Kira couldn't help but feel like a puppy being led on a leash. 

"Get on, and turn to lie your back." 

Kira crawled, a little awkwardly, onto the odd mattress. At first, he'd assumed it was a futon, the surface was flat and it hadn't given immediately with his weight the way a spring box mattress did. There was no bounce or spring to it at all. But when he moved his knees, he found that he'd left impressions on the firm surface. He got to the middle and turned to lie on his back and was startled to find Ukitake almost right next to him. The weird mattress hadn't indicated any motion from another body on the surface. The captain tied his end of the rope to the headboard, so that the rope was well tensioned between Kira and the headboard.

"Pull a little, tell me how it feels."

Kira pulled and shivered at all his muscles tensioning from his hips through his belly and along his chest and arms. "Nice."

Ukitake flashed a smile. "Good." He unfolded a length of silk cloth he'd had bunched in one hand. The cool length of it fell against Kira's skin. Ukitake slid the softness against Kira's throat and Kira was made blazingly aware of the collar he wore. His body tensioned again against his wrist restraints and the combination made Kira shudder.

Ukitake hummed softly, and then wrapped that length of silken cloth around Kira's head and over his eyes. Kira made a small questioning sound, but he didn't unbind himself. He waited for what would happen next. And waited and...

And with his eyes denied him, he realized he could feel Ukitake's reiatsu all around him, that slow surge and pull, that power piled up all around his body, quiescent, sensing, focused on him. The mattress had shaped to his own body, but... it seemed to fall away from him a little more sharply than it should. That's when he realized that he could smell something herbal... piney rosemary and cool sharp mint.

Kira opened his mouth, a trick he'd learned a long time ago when he needed to scent something a little better. The herbal scent came more strongly and Kira wondered if that's what Ukitake's hair would smell like. He smelled just a hint of sweat, of arousal, both his and that of another. He smelled just a hint of Ukitake's breath and realized the warmth by his left ear was likely the captain's face. Ukitake was watching him. He shivered all over.

"Please," he whispered.

"Please what?" The whisper was light against his ear. He turned his head sharply, but touched nothing, no one.

Kira moaned, and he heard that other breathing quicken.

"Please... please touch me," Kira begged.

"Yes." And then those calloused hands stroked down his anchored arms, along his chest, skimming over his nipples and then back up his throat. Kira gasped and arched, disappointed when he couldn't quite seem to meet with the body he felt must be above his. Those hands then moved down his body, along his belly, and then with a gasp of delight from Kira, they stroked his balls, his cock, teasing, pulling gently. 

"Mouth." Kira gasped out. "Please... "

A small laugh. "Kiss? Lick? Bite? What?"

Kira made a sound of frustration. "All. Anything... please..." A warm, wet, and rough tongue roughly stirred his scrotum. Kira hummed as he felt Ukitake's mouth close over his sac and balls, but then Kira felt the edge of teeth closing down. He half screamed.

"No!" The teeth let up.

"Rethink that request?" The voice was breathless, and Kira suddenly realized he was affecting Ukitake as well.

"Think?" Kira sobbed out. "How can I _think_?"

"Exactly."

Kira just wanted to cry. "Fuck this. You're making me think and I can't think and... oh... oh... oh... this... this is why we were supposed to talk this all out in the restaurant. Right?"

"Right."

"Can you just do... do what we agreed on? You do whatever you think you can to... to arouse me and... and maybe I just tell you what feels really good for me?" Kira felt his voice shake, "'Cause I don't think I can tell you everything while... while you're doing it."

"Right. I'm going to take 'yes' as 'yes' and 'no' as 'stop'. Will that work for you?"

"Yes, oh gods, please."

"I don't know if the gods will hear you, but I certainly do."

And a warm, dense body slid onto Kira's, legs against his legs, Ukitake's thickening but still soft cock hanging between Kira's own legs. Kira's cock firmed at that touch of soft skin against that sensitive spot. Arms slid under his shoulders and then a hand slid into his hair, slowly closing. Kira's body tensioned as that hand pulled gradually harder against his hair. Kira whispered, "Oh, yes." The tensioning remained exactly at that level and Kira's breath shuddered through him just as gentle lips teased his own. He pulled against his bound hands, hearing the rope creak.

Kira kissed back, and opened his mouth as Ukitake probed and teased with lips and teeth. Ukitake delved into Kira's mouth with his tongue and Kira moaned into it, his head moving to the grip in his hair. He felt the Ukitake's cock firm, rubbing against the skin between his anus and balls, and his hips moved to gain more friction there and for his own cock, trapped between them.

The hand turned his head to the side, and then Ukitake used lips, tongue, and teeth against the swirls of Kira's ear. Nipping kisses, and then lightly tracing the shell of his ear with the warm, wet tip of his tongue. The licking slid down the tendon alongside his throat, with light nips all the way down. One nip tugged hard on the silk choker, making Kira's breath catch and his cock twitch between them. Then Ukitake's tongue and mouth moved along the pulse of Kira's throat, and when he felt teeth closing against his pulse and breath, Kira's cry was needing, wanting, trembling.

Ukitake's breathing became ragged as well, and Kira felt Ukitake grind hard against his own hard-on. "Yes... oh yes," Kira whispered and felt Ukitake's reiatsu spike at the words, the arousal amid that power even stronger, swirled with a desire that Kira now understood was for him. Just knowing that he was pleasing, arousing the other shinigami made his own arousal all the harder, higher.

Ukitake's mouth and hands moved down, stroking, sliding, kisses and licks down Kira's chest, then onto his nipples. He yelped as the rough wet warmth of Ukitake's tongue slid along his nipples and, surprised by how good that felt, Kira's body arched as Ukitake's mouth closed on a nipple, teeth pinched the bud. The electric intensity of sensation shot right through Kira. "Oh, gods. That's _good_..."

"You have had that done to you, before, right?" The deep voice was neutral but curious.

"No." Kira said blushing again. "Gin's cut them, but he's never done _that_."

"Cut..." Kira couldn't see, but he could feel the anger, killing intent suddenly spill, flood all around him. Not at him, he could sense that he wasn't the target of it, but the sheer, heavy weight of it made Kira twist again as it sparked an anger, a rage that he hadn't even realized he'd held. A rage fed by learning more about what it was that he might have had with someone else... that he might, by raw chance and his own stumbling efforts, get another chance at.

"Jyuushiro," Kira said, shivering. "Please continue, sir. I want... want to know more." 

He felt Ukitake start at the use of his personal name, the intent lessening and then fading away. "Yes, Izuru."

Jyuushiro took Kira's other nipple into his mouth and somehow sucked in such a way that Kira's nipple felt like it was fluttering, pulled pleasantly at the same time. A silken fall of Jyuushiro's hair slid against Kira's belly, cock, and balls. Kira moaned, pulling at his bindings, body arching again, lost again in the sensation. 

As Jyuushiro licked and kissed his way down Kira's belly, the fall of hair moved as well, sliding, soothing, almost tickling. Kira gave a shout when Jyuushiro took the length of Kira's cock deep within his mouth and throat, just swallowing him whole into a wet, warm heat that closed and moved against his length. Kira pumped his hips, and Jyuushiro deftly moved with the motions, bobbing his head, twice. Kira felt the blood pool in his loins, the hard tightness right before orgasm. Kira stuttered, "S... S... Stop!"

Instantly Jyuushiro was off of him, making Kira cry out, bucking involuntarily at the sudden loss of sensation. 

"I... I was going to... I was going to come," Kira whispered, oddly thrilled at having the power to stop the man tormenting him so deliciously. 

"I thought that was the point of this exercise, Izuru," Jyuushiro breathed against Kira's ear. Kira moaned softly and turned towards the voice and got a kiss that tasted of his own precum.

When Kira caught his breath again, he said, "I... I don't want to without... without having you in me... without you coming with me, too. Please." It came out with more pleading than Kira intended, but he'd had to say it. 

"You like anal penetration?" Jyuushiro asked.

"With you, yes. Please. I want... I want to give myself to you that way," Kira said, and at Jyuushiro's spike of arousal, desire, he understood that he'd picked the right thing to say and it warmed him through. That the gift was understood.

"Hm. Okay... then I have one more thing I want to try on you..." Long, lean hands, picked up Kira's knees and Kira eagerly bent himself double. 

His hips had always been very flexible, and it was an easy position for him to maintain. He shivered as he felt lips, tongue and teeth moving from the soft flesh under his knee and along the backs and insides of his thighs. Then the sharp drag of nails down soft flesh and he twisted, tensioned. "Oh, yes," he sighed and was rewarded by a quiet groan against his skin.

He felt Jyuushiro's kisses, nuzzles, nips traveling closer and closer to his groin, and then he felt Jyuushiro's tongue slide from his balls down. He cried out, shuddering, arching as the smooth sliding of that wet warmth touched the exquisitely sensitive skin of his anus. Stroking all along that small mouth and then probing, pushing hard at the tight ring of muscles. Kira cried out with each probe, pulling hard at his bindings. He could feel his cock and balls grow heavy with need. Then he sobbed with loss as that sensation ceased. 

"Oh, that worked," Jyuushiro said, sounding very satisfied. 

Then Kira got to taste the musk of his own anus as Jyuushiro kissed him again, deeply, probing as he'd probed his other mouth. Kira greedily kissed back. The man's weight pushed his legs up against his chest, and he could feel the hardness of the other's cock, the silken soft skin rubbing gently against his ass crack.

Against his mouth, Jyuushiro said softly, "Do you like being lubed inside? Or do you prefer just taking a lubed cock straight?"

"It... it's been a while. I think I'd like a little preparation, please," Kira said back, and stole another kiss before Jyuushiro leaned away again. "I really like how fingers feel."

And in answer a cool, slick, slender finger probed at the tight ring of his anus. Kira tried to relax and suddenly the muscles gave, and he gasped as he was penetrated. The hard slenderness slid into him and turned, crooking to stroke his prostate. Kira shivered, groaned at the feeling, and then twisted as a second finger joined the first. "Yes. Please," he pleaded, and both fingers started to slide in and out as Jyuushiro's other hand started to stroke his cock. 

"No, stop," Kira was shocked again to have Jyuushiro stop exactly when asked to, the hand fell away, and the fingers within him stilled. "I'm... I'm too close... please... I think I'd like you in me now."

"As you wish," Jyuushiro said softly. Another click of the lube bottle lid, and then the heated touch of a cock head probed at Kira's anus, and he moaned and tried again, to relax, to let him in. A sensation of stretching, almost too much, almost too big and that hot invasion of his body, sliding surely deep within him. Kira's eyes rolled up in his head under the blindfold, the rope holding his wrists creaked as he pulled hard, his breath came out in a groan, and his hips rolled trying to accept...

Kira was glad that once in, Jyuushiro stilled, trembling. Kira took the moment Jyuushiro gave him to adjust to the penetration, and when he could, he tightened the muscles of his ass and heard the captain gasp, groan softly. The deep impalement made Kira breathe in short, gasping pants. "Good. I'm good, sir. You can... you can move a little now. Short to start, please?"

"Yes," Jyuushiro said breathlessly. Short, slow strokes made both of them groan with each movement. Kira moved his hips for more, and elicited soft cries from his partner and more whimpering cries from himself. The pace picked up, faster, stronger, longer strokes as both of them met the other's motion. Jyuushiro's hand suddenly seized Kira's cock and started pumping with his lube slick hand. Kira cried out, feeling his climax harden, tighten, flutter, and then explode through him.

He screamed when it hit. He felt his own come hit his belly. He heard Jyuushiro cry hard out as well, as his ass grabbed the captain's cock tight with his own orgasm. Then he felt Jyuushiro spasming within him, and he groaned and shuddered as his whole body tightened again. That brought gasps from Jyuushiro as well, and that lean body fell forward against his, sweat and come slick between them. 

Hair fell over Kira's face, and he got to smell, first hand, the rosemary and mint of Jyuushiro's hair mixed with the scent that purely Jyuushiro. The captain's arms tightened around him and Kira nuzzled softly against that sweat damped, herbal hair. Both of them were breathing in big, heaving gasps that gradually slowed. Jyuushiro coughed once, but that was all Kira heard.

Both of them groaned a little as Jyuushiro moved so that he could kiss Kira, slow and sensually. They both sighed a little as Jyuushiro slipped from Kira's ass. Then Jyuushiro left him for a moment, and came back with warm, damp clothes and cleaned Kira up, still tied up, still blindfolded. The rubbing felt so good against his skin, Kira almost purred. 

Then a sharp snap of kidou and his rope cuffs fell away. 

"Don't move, yet, Izuru, let me rub these back to life," Jyuushiro said softly, and Kira whimpered a little as Jyuushiro rubbed the circulation back into his arms. Kira shivered a little, he'd never been taken care of like this, after. Cleaned and released whole, it was something he'd never had before.

Gentle hands stroked the cloth away from his eyes, and he got to see Jyuushiro's concerned face looking at him. Kira's breath caught again at the attention in those eyes, the intent gaze directed solely at and for him. 

"You all right?" Jyuushiro asked.

"Yes," Kira said, truthfully. "I am."

Jyuushiro smiled, "Then get off the covers, I want to get under the blankets with you."

Kira groaned at having to move, but he did; and was rewarded by getting pulled up against the warm, lean length of Jyuushiro as they both were covered by smooth sheets and thick blankets. Jyuushiro gently stroked Kira's skin.

"Well, Izuru, what do you think?"

"Think? You want me to think again?" Kira said and the laughter in his hair made him blush with happiness this time.

"Mmmhm... Did we do what you wanted to do? We can do a more detailed post-mortem when we have our brains, but I'd like to know that, at least."

Kira leaned quietly against Jyuushiro's chest, hearing the steady heartbeat, the slightly rasping breath. He wondered if he'd pushed the captain too hard for his breathing to sound like that. "We didn't."

"No? What did we miss?"

Kira thought a bit about how to say it. He fingered his choker and shivered a little. "The terror. My fear. All the things I was so afraid of when I talked with you. We didn't touch any of it."

Jyuushiro squeezed him gently. "Sorry." There was laughter in that deep voice in the dark.

Kira chuckled as well. "I'm not. Not really. Thank you, Jyuushiro, for what you did give me, it was something I couldn't want because I didn't think it was possible. I couldn't even really wish for it because it seemed too insane. Thank you. And..."

"And?"

Kira said, slowly, "And I think I'd like to come back, sometime. Even if you do have to torture me again just to figure out what I want." 

And Kira was rewarded with rich, rolling laughter. "Any time, Izuru. Any time."

_TBC_


	4. One Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gin comes to take Kira back, and learns that Ukitake's had a taste. He acts accordingly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is ground out from a very odd dream... but it really hit me hard one morning. So I thought I should write it down. I suspect that this is from getting all that feedback I got from _After Care_. Short enough I could, unlike the other one. But I'm editing this afterwards in order to get this more like a story rather than just that first sharp shock of a dream.

Jyuushiro stepped out into the compound of the Thirteenth Division.

He took it all in in one horrified snapshot of a moment. Kira's hands had been bound together so tightly they were blue, and Gin had pulled the fukutaichou's hands over his own head. Kira was impaled on Shinso's tip and Jyuushiro saw Kira mouth the words, "I'm sorry. Please live."

Jyuushiro took two quick steps to his left, leading Gin's eye just before he took a shunpo step, hard, to Gin's three-o-clock position. He heard Kira scream and arch and then Shinso was pointed at Jyuushiro. Jyuushiro stopped for just an instant. Jyuushiro felt Gin's reiatsu flare as he fired Shinso, but he had already moved away again, to Gin's back. Even so he felt a slash across his left shoulder. Shinso was just that fast. 

Jyuushiro couldn't help but be thankful for reflex, for the tracking arc. Otherwise Shinso would have fired through Kira to kill him.

As Jyuushiro stepped, he readied the simplest of fire kido and fired it, point blank, at Kira's bindings. He trusted that the rope would burn sooner than flesh, and the trust was rewarded as the binding parted; still, there was the smell of scorched flesh. Jyuushiro grabbed the fukutaichou and heard the young man grunt in real pain as he grabbed all that tortured, burned, and cut flesh that he'd also seen in the first, horrified moment. It didn't matter compared to their lives. 

He blessed those centuries of losing badly to Yoruichi. He now had ingrained knowledge that when playing shunpo tag, the follower had to almost blindly just go in the direction the leader had set. One could judge distance but it was very hard to judge direction.

Jyuushiro went straight up. Hard. 

With the burden of the fukutaichou he didn't go that far, but he didn't need to. Gin appeared in the air above him and started falling towards them with a yelp. Jyuushiro turned and put both feet on the ex-captain and got the leverage to push, hard, for his shunpo step. There was no one and nothing else to push off of up there, so he would now have a moment. 

Jyuushiro ran through a dozen possibilities and ended up in front of the Fourth. He was through the doors and into Unohana-san's office as quickly as he could open doors and find purchases. He dropped the young, abused fukutaichou at her feet, and then told Sougyo no Kotowari to tell Katen Kyoukotsu and Minazuki what the hell was going on. 

The zanpakutou complied but returned _I will also tell Ryūjin Jakka._

Jyuushiro thought for the moment it took to get out of the building. He answered, _Please do._

He knew they could not release in Gotei 13's grounds without permission. He felt Sougyo no Kotowari's agitation at that fact, and the fact that they had to go back and catch Gin's attention and fight an already released zanpakutou.

 _It's only for a few moments,_ he thought. 

_We may only last that long without the element of surprise,_ was Sougyo no Kotowari's wry answer. _But we will do our best._

_As always._

Then came that familiar reiatsu. Shunsui. Never lazy when it really mattered. Together they flared what reiatsu they could and faced Gin, whose mouth quirked up in a grin. Two shots were nearly as fast as one.

But then the black Hell butterfly appeared and sonorously started to intone, "Captains may now release..."

Gin went slit-eyed like an angry cat for just an instant, and then the mask was back in place. He tsked in disappointment and flickered away.

Of course, that was when Shunsui chose to ask mildly, "Are you bleeding or is that just your way of showing me how glad you are to see me?"

_TBC_


	5. Written in Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Gin's attack, Kira Izuru decides on a ritual he wants to do with Jyuushiro to mark the end of his relationship with Gin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt I was given:   
> Anyone in Bleach or Naruto: piano taburette  
> In the horizontal direction: big bed made of metal - with a grid of pipes instead of the headboard

After Gin's attack, Jyuushiro had spent two weeks with Izuru at the hospital. Rukia and the Thirds picked up the slack, coming to him when they needed decisions. They were used to him having to be out due to his illness on a usual basis, so everything ran as smoothly as usual. Jyuushiro mused that there were sometimes benefits to being as ill as he was, and he may as well take advantage of them while he could.

He sat by Izuru's bed for the entire first night, his hand holding Izuru's lax hand while the young man lay unconscious, holding tighter when Izuru twitched in nightmares. No one knew if Izuru would make it, given how much damage Gin had inflicted. Jyuushiro kept the uncertainty firmly out of his mind, and he spoke to the unconscious young man, telling him everyday things, like what flowers were now blooming by Izuru's parents' grave, what the weather was like, and the quality of the food being delivered to Jyuushiro by the Thirds. 

Then Izuru first awoke, briefly, Jyuushiro explained the exact amount of damage that had been done to his body, and what Izuru could expect so far as pain. Izuru nodded, blearily, worked a dry mouth until Jyuushiro slipped a straw between cracked lips. He sipped, drank, and managed to whisper, "Jyuushiro." 

"Yes. I'm here," Jyuushiro said softly.

"Thank you... Sir..." Izuru croaked. Jyuushiro nodded, stroked Iruzu's hair, and Izuru turned into his pillows and fell back into asleep.

His sleep wasn't quite as deep as when he was unconscious, and Jyuushiro was grateful. The second and third days Izuru slept prodigious amounts while technicians, doctors, and nurses flowed in and out, healing the young man with kido as well as the latest in medical technology. Shuuhei came in to spell Jyuushiro and on the next Shunsui's sardonic figure came to relieve Jyuushiro's watch. After that Rukia, Renji, and Shuuhei took regular turns, and let Jyuushiro sleep in his customary camp bed in Izuru's room.

It had been a close thing, and Jyuushiro didn't like to think how close. 

The medical staff interruptions were incessant, but one morning, Jyuushiro finally found himself alone with a contemplative Izuru, who was awake and drowsing quietly in the sunshine coming in from the window.

"How are you feeling?" Jyuushiro asked quietly.

"I don't know," Izuru said. He tilted his head to look at his hand, and he stretched his fingers and palm under his gaze. "It's... I never thought of him..." Blue eyes closed. 

Jyuushiro waited.

"Gin abused me," Izuru said, his tone flat.

"He did," Jyuushiro said. 

Tears started to well from the corners of Izuru's closed eyes. "He hurt me."

"He did."

"He controlled me, manipulated me, and..." Izuru took a deep breath that shook when he let it out and tears flowed faster. "And it doesn't matter if he meant to or not. It doesn't matter if he needed to in order to feel like he had power in a powerless situation under Aizen. It doesn't matter if he needed to do it to prop his own ego up..."

Jyuushiro shook his head slowly in agreement.

"He did damage to me, and I don't want to be hurt anymore."

The sobs finally broke through. Jyuushiro was relieved to see the young fukutaichou finally allowing himself to feel it all. He climbed into Iruzu's bed and gathered Izuru close into his lap and arms, and was gratified to feel Izuru curl in close to him, unafraid and trusting. Jyuushiro held the crying Izuru close, and let him cry. Izuru seemed to retreat into himself after that.

"Maybe I should go back to my office?" Jyuushiro asked at one point.

Izuru started and looked directly at him. "If you need to?" Jyuushiro could hear the question behind the words, and he smiled.

"I don't need to, Izuru. If you are all right with my presence..."

Izuru nodded before Jyuushiro had even finished the sentence. "I feel safer when you're with me, Sir. And..." He frowned, hesitating. Izuru looked up to meet Jyuushiro's eyes. "And there's something I need to talk with you about doing when I'm out of here. I'm still working out what I... want..." Izuru suddenly smiled. "That feels so odd to be able to say it, but yes, there's something I really want."

Jyuushiro chuckled and settled back into his makeshift desk chair. "Good. If you wish to talk the particulars over with me, I'll be right here."

"I will," Iruzu said. "I will."

And Jyuushiro counted it as something of a victory when Izuru didn't speak again for several hours. That the fukutaichou would actually give himself the time to figure himself out and not feel obligated to Jyuushiro was huge. Jyuushiro worked on his office work and got papers signed, schedules made, meeting agendas figured out, and let himself work, trusting that Izuru would say what he needed to say when he could. 

The medical staff came and went, and the physical therapists came in and took Izuru away and led him back sweating with pain and effort. Jyuushiro helped Iruzu into the bath afterward, and did the careful bathing needed to avoid still-healing sutures. Izuru stared quietly at one line of staples up his left forearm and frowned.

"What are you thinking?"

"The cutting work you've done," Izuru said. "What kind of things did that help people heal?"

Jyuushiro took a moment to jump mental tracks and answer Izuru properly. "It was mostly to make marks to cover something that fate or accident had imposed on them. A design over accident scars, beautifying a mistake in battle, or to make a scar even more imposing. It often seemed to help them make what had happened to them into something that was more of their choice."

"Will you do that for me?" 

Jyuushiro paused in his ministrations and thought about Izuru, about how the young man approached thing with Jyuushiro, and about the kind of control Izuru now needed over his life. "Yes."

Izuru laughed. "Wait, wait, you haven't tortured what I want from me, yet, how can you..."

"I love you," Jyuushiro said simply. "I now know you and how you work with me. You would not ask the impossible of me, for you would not ask me to diminish you. I will do anything I can to build you up, you know that, so I answer as my heart tells me to do. Yes. I will do what you wish."

Izuru stared at him. 

Jyuushiro laughed. "But I also would not object to you tell me what it is you want to do and how you would like it done, either, my Izuru."

"It's... it's my bed," Izuru started. "While lying here, I realized that I dreaded going home to it, because Ichimaru gave it to me, and I... I can't afford to move it out and buy a new one. I just... it sounds crazy, but I want to lay Ichimaru's ghost in my room and bed."

Jyuushiro nodded. "That doesn't sound crazy to me. Ritual can work wonders, and we can do a sort of exorcism for your bed if you wish, and if your own blood as a part of the pattern makes it work better for your heart and mind then all the better."

Izuru blinked blue eyes at Jyuushiro. "You don't think that's utterly insane?"

Jyuushiro laughed. "No. I've seen insane," he said dryly. "This isn't it. It feels like a genuine attempt at working through your emotions and getting to a place where you can deliberately cut your emotional ties with your past."

Izuru nodded slowly. "All right, Sir. I... that you feel that way helps immensely... and I've been thinking about how and what..."

"Good," Jyuushiro said, taking out a clean pad of paper from his pile of office work. "Now. Tell me."

They spent the next two hours listing things and talking over the details of what Izuru needed, and then refined things over the next three days as one or the other of them came up with better ideas on what to do and how to do it. Finally, Izuru was released from the hospital. He begged two weeks to get everything back into order at his Division, but then he told Jyuushiro he would put himself in Jyuushiro's hands.

Jyuushiro cleared his weekend and the two days before it just to pack everything needed. It wasn't just the Scene itself, which they set on Friday night; he knew that with the level of vulnerability the young fukutaichou was asking for, they'd both need the rest of the time to recover. The trust demanded by such actions would crumble away between them without additional time to just be together, after.

Now, Jyuushiro could hear Izuru's teeth grind against the bit gag. The piano taburette, shiny and black and solid, creaked as Izuru pulled against the thick, soft ropes of his bonds that were anchored to the massive structure. Each of his limbs was wrapped carefully to each leg of the taburette. From the way Izuru ground against the mattress under him, Jyuushiro suspected that he was thoroughly aroused, and the dowel Jyuushiro had given him as his safeword was still firmly within his grasp. 

From a bag he'd packed in his own play room, Jyuushiro pulled out his gloves, a sterile cloth, and a wrapped scalpel. Jyuushiro liked modern technology, it often made things so much safer. He also got out a thin-walled crystal goblet before popping open an iodine scrub. He diligently scrubbed short lines on each side along five of Izuru's ribs until ten copper-colored lines lay against raised scars.

"Can you hear me?" Jyuushiro asked, and was relieved to see Izuru nod quickly. He was alert. "Good. I am going to cut one line and proceed up your back."

Another quick nod, and Jyuushiro saw knuckles whiten on the dowel. He had installed a thicker bit on the gag so that Izuru could chew on it; use it as a mouth guard so that he couldn't bite his tongue during the process. 

Jyuushiro took several deep, slow breaths to push back that adrenaline. He let his heightened awareness, strength, and speed slash a line following the curve of a rib. He kept well away from Izuru's spine and stayed over the bone, cutting a clean line through scarred skin. Gin had left Izuru's skin laced with random marks from whips, burns, and chains, but Jyuushiro was overwriting the chaos with his own sort of order. The line he made was clean and distinct over the mass of negligent pain. 

The path of the blade made the man under him breathe in a shaking breath, but Izuru remained still. Jyuushiro didn't like to think too much about why and how it was that Izuru could be so self-controlled at being cut. It was impossible for Jyuushiro to do such a thing completely dispassionately; but he could control the actions his passion acted through just as he could on the battlefield. So he juggled concern for the vulnerable vice-Captain, his own very strong desire for the man who had made himself so vulnerable, hate for Gin, and an underlying electric jolt of being able to cut into a living human being on purpose.

Red blood flowed. He caught it at the lowest part of the cut in the thin-edged crystal glass he'd brought for the purpose. When the flow slowed, he opened another shallow slash on top of the next rib, and then the next and the next...until he had five equal shallow marks, each about seven inches long over Izuru's ribs. Izuru was now breathing hard, covered in a fine sweat. He managed to keep still for each one, but trembled more and more between them as Jyuushiro moved up.

When he moved to Izuru's left side, the young man gave a low groan and shuddered as Jyuushiro stroked him. 

"Izuru, I'm going to do it again on this side." 

The blond head nodded, but this time Jyuushiro read the signs in Izuru's body, and he was very careful to put his hand down on that blood-stained back before he sank the blade edge through the surface. Izuru twitched and gasped. Jyuushiro's solid contact made sure that the blade moved with the cut instead of jerking to the side. 

When he drew the blade over the skin, Izuru bucked and twisted under him with the cut, making low sobbing sounds into the gag. The restraints kept him from moving very far, but Jyuushiro grew worried.

Jyuushiro collected the blood, careful not to waste a drop, and braced himself for the jerk and twitch on the next cut. This one was as violent as the last, and he waited for Izuru to settle before he moved his hand. The cut made Izuru whimper, shaking, and all his limbs trembled with tension.

Jyuushiro sat back and thought. The combination of restraints were Izuru's idea, and Jyuushiro wondered if the fukutaichou had realized how difficult it would be. The odd part was that, judging from all of these scars on him, Izuru had been through much worse. Then he remembered Izuru's softly mumbled stories about how Gin had gotten off only when Izuru had struggled or protested.

Jyuushiro took the glove off his left hand and slid his freed fingers into the sweat-dampened hair at the back of Izuru's neck. Izuru moaned and Jyuushiro felt his body go slack the way Jyuushiro wanted.

"I am Ukitake Jyuushiro," he said firmly. "Izuru, show me who you really are. Do not fight this, accept it as I know you are able."

Jyuushiro tightened his grip in the heavy blond strands. A sound came out of Izuru that was a soft, slow groan that sounded as if it came from the bottom of his heart. The young man's breathing slowed from shallow and fast to deep and long.

"Good. That's better, I want to see your strength," Jyuushiro said soothingly. "Three more, and we will be done."

Izuru gave him a quick nod, and he didn't flinch from Jyuushiro's gentle touch. Jyuushiro wrapped his left hand around Izuru's shoulder. When the blade went in, this time, Izuru only sighed and his body relaxed even more into the mattress. Steadily, Jyuushiro parted mottled skin with bright blade, placing the scalpel on a sterile cloth to grab the goblet in his gloved right hand to catch the blood. He went on to do the rest of the cuts without incident.

They'd half-filled the narrow goblet by the time the last cut slowed. He carefully set it aside, and at the sound of the glass on the wooden table, Izuru let the dowel in his hand drop. Guarding plastic crinkled as the wood hit. Jyuushiro pulled the glove from his right hand.

Jyuushiro moved to Izuru's head, and seeing him slumped forward, Jyuushiro half-expected him to be in a dead faint. Jyuushiro quickly unbuckled the bit gag, pulled off the blindfold, and ran his fingers up along Izuru's jaw, past the blue choker, behind his ears, and then into his hair right at this scalp. As he lifted he heard another soft moan. Then he was caught by bright blue eyes, wide open and almost feverishly aware. Izuru's mouth parted, and Jyuushiro turned Izuru's head and kissed him. Jyuushiro was gratified by the hunger in the kiss that was returned, the low sounds of need and desire made his own breathing quicken.

When Jyuushiro finally broke off the kiss, Izuru panted softly, letting his head hang heavy in Jyuushiro's hold. "Sir..." he finally said, softly between pants. "I... can... I know you wanted to... close all the cuts... with kido, but... please, can you... can you leave them on me? Maybe... would you... is there a way to make it... permanent? So I can have something... something of you on me, too?"

Jyuushiro thought for a moment. "May I add one more cut and let them heal as scars across the whole field of what's been done to you?"

"Add... add one more?" Izuru hesitated and then relaxed against Jyuushiro's hands, eyes closing. "Please do as you wish."

Jyuushiro chuckled softly. "If I add a full line across the top, then you will have the I Ching hexagram for splitting a mountain from the bedrock up. You wished to sunder yourself from your past and acknowledge the misfortune attending it, this will be an appropriate symbol for what you are attempting to do."

The laughter was so faint, Jyuushiro nearly didn't hear it, but humor laced the pain-thinned voice that said, "That would be so... you, sir, I think you'd better go ahead."

Jyuushiro kissed Izuru's lips softly, and did not mention that the other name for the hexagram was "flayed". The removal of outward appearances, a circumstance that favored honorable men, but destroyed all those who deceived. It was also too appropriate for Izuru's condition.

He sighed and let Izuru's head back down. He put his gloves back on, picked up the scalpel, and ran the tip of his knife an even distance above the other cuts. Since he wasn't trying to milk it of blood, he ran it very shallow, barely parting the skin, slowing for the bump of Izuru's spine. Izuru lay still under him, only the slightest hiss of a breath let him know that the other felt anything at all.

Blood beaded along the line.

"Was that deep enough?" Izuru's voice sounded sleepy, heavy with what they'd done so far.

"Deep enough for me, but it might not mark as thoroughly as the others."

"That's all right, you can always cut it again." 

The sheer confidence behind Izuru's words made Jyuushiro smile. It was a huge step from when Izuru had thought no one would ever stay with him. 

"Yes," Jyuushiro affirmed, glad now that he'd let himself be available to Izuru. "Let me dress these, and we can get on to the next part." 

"Aye." 

Jyuushiro pressed light dressings over each of the cuts. He hesitated over the long one at the top.

"Sorry, I'm going to have to use a liquid bandage on this one."

The groan he got made Jyuushiro huff a soft laugh. "It's not that bad, is it?"

"It stings!" Iruzu said, half-complaining.

Jyuushiro swatted him on his ass, getting a yelp, tugs against the taburette, and a protesting groan. 

"That stung, too?"

"Yes... sir." Izuru huffed and then settled. "Oh, all right."

"Right." Jyuushiro spread the liquid bandage over the already crusting cut, and let Izuru hiss as much as he liked.

He put away all the medical equipment and unwrapped Izuru's arms and legs before rubbing them thoroughly. "All right, now try getting up."

Izuru carefully stood, swayed, and leaned against Jyuushiro when Jyuushiro slipped under his arm. "Oh... dizzy."

"Sit. Head between your knees." 

Izuru sat on the edge of the bed and did as told, and Jyuushiro knelt next to him. When Izuru came back up, he wordlessly put an arm over Jyuushiro's shoulders. They stood together. Jyuushiro carefully walked Izuru across the room and back, liking that his steps grew firmer. He walked Izuru to his bedroom, set him down gently on the tatami by Izuru's old-fashioned writing desk, and went back to the main room to get the cloth containing his calligraphy brushes, a teacup filled with clear water, the glass of blood, and a roll of good paper.

The writing desk sat next to the giant bed made of steel, the headboard formed from metal piping rather than wood, and the whole, solid mass was anchored with stone. Jyuushiro, when he'd first seen the thing, hadn't wanted to know exactly why it was so solid; but he couldn't help but see the flecks of blood, the bright scarring against the corners, and the bends in the solid iron pipes.

No wonder Izuru had said he needed an exorcism. 

The slender blond knelt before the writing table, his bandaged and bloody back straight as a board. Jyuushiro moved in and placed the glass to the right of the desk. He unrolled the paper so that it ran from the top of the desk to the bottom, and he set two bar-shaped paperweights at the top and bottom of the paper on the desk. He set his brushes out so that Izuru could see them.

"The fox-haired one?" Jyuushiro asked with a slight frown.

"Yes. I think that would be appropriate." Izuru sounded remote, tired as he reached for the black-haired stiff brush made from the tip hairs of a fox's tail. Jyuushiro saw his hand trembling as he picked it up, his poise uncertain as he held it over the paper.

Jyuushiro untied the sleeves of his kimono and slipped the robes off his right shoulder before moving in behind the slender man. Warm skin against skin and bandages, and he felt Izuru lean back into his support, the trembling easing. "So," he whispered softly against Izuru's ear. "Kitsune wards rather than appeasement?"

"I'm done appeasing him," Izuru said with enough steel in his voice that Jyuushiro smiled.

"Good then. Here..." Jyuushiro took Izuru's hand and the brush in his own, slender fingers laced with his. He slid his other arm around Izuru, brushing small hard nipples, shivering belly, spreading his hand across Izuru's center, warming the stone-still statue the young fukutaichou had become. "My research indicated wards in Sanskrit, like this..."

Shunsui's calligraphy was better, but Jyuushiro was more sure about how to write Sanskrit, so he wet the brush thoroughly in water, and then dipped it in the blood they'd so painstakingly gotten. With Izuru's warm hand in his, he stroked the thick liquid onto the paper, in swift, sure strokes, applying pressure for the turns, and making sure that the curves, hooks, and endings of lines had their own definition.

The quotes were from the sutras showing the power of seeing clearly, of not taking things on what they appeared to be. A string of characters for each corner of the big iron bed, though they simply wrote "Safety" and "Strength" for the perilous northeast corner. They brushed them together, and he felt Izuru grow stronger with each one. 

"There..." Jyuushiro said quietly, as they finished the last of the four papers. "That should do it for the bed."

"There's enough left for one more," Izuru said quietly. "Would you... could I write something on you, sir?"

"On me?"

"You are going to... fuck me on this bed, right?"

"No, Izuru," Jyuushiro felt the young man stiffen at the bald denial. "I will not fuck you. I will make slow love to you and pleasure us both. I do not wish to invoke what you're trying so hard to banish."

Izuru's head fell back on Jyuushiro's shoulder. "I... I would like that... taichou. That would give me some good memories to cover the old ones."

Jyuushiro pulled Izuru close, wrapping his arms about him, and he felt the young fukutaichou sigh and relax back against him. "Good then. What did you want to write on me?"

Izuru swallowed and then turned his head to kiss Jyuushiro's jawline. "It will be my secret. I'd like to write it on your back."

Jyuushiro smiled at that and was glad that Izuru was taking the lead in this. He scooted back off the bed, stood, and untied his hakama and peeled it and all his kimono off. He left his fundoshi on simply for comfort's sake. "On the table or the bed?"

"The bed, I think."

Jyuushiro lay on the yielding surface of the bed and relaxed. The bristles tickled and stroked, but the fluid feel as it flowed over his skin wasn't as disturbingly warm as he thought it might have been. It was just tacky, as sticky as thick ink, and he couldn't help but compare the strokes to what he knew. The stacked mouths of happiness, and then a tree by the open mouthed form for satisfaction, together forming the concept of true joy.

Jyuushiro felt himself blush, hands closing on the cool sheets as what Izuru had written on him sank in.

"Is it dry?" he asked, careful not to move.

"Just about..." Jyuushiro heard Izuru clean the brush carefully, and then felt Izuru crawl onto the bed beside him, trembling fingers running along his side. 

"Lie down, Izuru, before you fall down."

Izuru settled against Jyuushiro's side, and Jyuushiro carefully turned himself onto his side. He smiled as Izuru slid in against him, rubbing his tired face against Jyuushiro's throat. The young man sighed as he nestled in against Jyuushiro's chest. Jyuushiro wrapped an arm about him.

"I'm... I might have to disappoint you, taichou."

"Hm? How so?"

"I think I'm about to fall asleep." The soft mumble made Jyuushiro laugh softly and brush a kiss across Izuru's hair. 

"We still have the rest of the weekend, Izuru. There will be time for more later, besides, what you wanted was to be able to sleep, was it not?"

"True." Izuru's voice faded, and he mumbled, "Now I feel safe." He yawned a tremendous yawn and chuckled. "This is good."

"It is good indeed," Jyuushiro said quietly against Izuru's hair. He held Izuru quietly as they both drifted off to sleep and was glad for what they'd done together.


End file.
